RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF THE USER EXPERIENCE FOR THE SUCCESS OF A VIRTUAL PRODUCT: BULGARIAN TRAVEL AGENCY WEBSITES

Authors

  • Stela Mincheva Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Sofia (BG)
  • Veselka Stoyanova Artillery, AD and CIS faculty, National Military University V.Levski (BG)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17770/etr2025vol2.8591

Keywords:

Travel websites, user experience, digitalization

Abstract

The huge and ubiquitous of the Internet usage, confirms that websites consist a critical competitive resource for tourism business. For the purpose of this report, a study of the user experience of virtual products - websites of Bulgarian travel agencies were prepared. Nine of most of popular Bulgarian sites were selected, namely: "Alexander Tour", "Bohemia", "Ecuador", "Emerald", "Globus", "Mistral", "Red Tours", "RuAl" and "Sun Travel". Data collection was performed through an electronic questionnaire, which was based on Google Forms. The results obtained showed that among all the quality factors, ease of understanding, response time and intuitive functioning of the website (ease of use and navigation) were the most important. The study was tested on a sample of 95 customers of travel websites targeting the Bulgarian market. In conclusion, a positive correlation was found between the overall perceived quality and purchase intentions.
Supporting Agencies
The author would like to thanks that paper was supported by the NSP DS program, which has received funding from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria under the grant agreement no. Д01-74/19.05.2022.

References

M. Wani, A. Raghavan, V.Abraham, et al. “Beyond utilitarian factors:User experience and travel company website successes.“ Inf Syst Front 19, p.769–785 , 22 March 2017, [Online]. Available: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10796-017-9747-1, [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025],.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9747-1.

Alexander Tour Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://alexandertour.com. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Bohemia Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://www.bohemia.bg. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Ekvator Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://ekvator.bg. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Emerald Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://emerald.bg/bg. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Globus Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://www.globuses.com. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Mistral Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://www.mistralbg.com. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

RedTours Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://redtours.bg. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

RuAL Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://rual-travel.com. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

Sun Travel Home Page, [Online]. Available: https://www.suntravel.bg. [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

P.Stoyanova, "80%Bulgarians will pay with digital means during their vacations abroad", https://www.investor.bg/a/566-novini-i-analizi/395423-pochti-80-ot-balgarite-shte-plashtat-s-digitalni-sredstva-po-vreme-na-vakantsiite-si-v-chuzhbina?utm_source.com, [Accessed: Feb. 02, 2025].

National Board of Tourism, “Visa survey: 67% of Bulgarians plan winter vacation in the mountains, digital payments preferred“, Feb. 04, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://tourismboard.bg/news/prouchvane-na-visa-67-ot-balgarite-planirat-zimna-pochivka-v-planinata-predpochitani-sa-digitalnite-plashtaniya/. [Accessed: Feb. 06, 2025].

O. M. Ali, The digital economy and its impact on consumption in the regions of Bulgaria. In: 3rd International Conference Spatial Development of Territories (SDT 2020). Atlantis Press, p. 256-261, 2021.

Y. Svezhenov, A. Nikov, L. Dimitrov, Modelling in dynamic user experience design of educational toys packages, In: AIP Conference Proceedings, SP -090015, 13.11.2019.

Statistics Kingdom, “Advanced box and whisker plot maker” [Online]. Available: https://www.statskingdom.com/advanced-boxplot-maker.html [Accessed: Feb. 06, 2025].

S. H. C. Toit , A. G. W. Steyn and R. H. Stumpf, Graphical exploratory data analysis.Springer, 1986, ISBN 978-1-4612-9371-2. OCLC 1019645745.

F. Khan, A. Rasli, R Mdyusoff, and A. Ahmad. "Do Demographic Make a Difference to Job Burnout Among University Academicians?", International Journal of Economics and Financial, Issues 5,p. 229-237, July 2015.

O. Mancheva-Ali and V. Dimitrova, Factors influencing hotel industry, XIV-th International Scientific Conference,At: Agia Triada, Greece, April 2019, [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332523141_factors_influencing_hotel_industry, [Accessed: Feb. 06, 2025].

Downloads

Published

08.06.2025

Issue

Vol. 2 (2025): Environment. Technology. Resources. Proceedings of the 16th International Scientific and Practical Conference. Volume 2

Section

Information Technologies

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Stela Mincheva, Veselka Stoyanova

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

[1]
S. Mincheva and V. Stoyanova, “RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF THE USER EXPERIENCE FOR THE SUCCESS OF A VIRTUAL PRODUCT: BULGARIAN TRAVEL AGENCY WEBSITES”, ETR, vol. 2, pp. 237–241, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.17770/etr2025vol2.8591.